A Father's Love
by HufflePride
Summary: Draco has lost a beloved son. This is his story


**A/N: I had this story saved on my computer and I thought that since I had so many stories of Draco being gay I decided that I would make him straight in this story. **

**I do not own Draco, Hermione, Ron, Harry or Pansy. J.K. Rowling does. She's so lucky. **

**_A Father's Love_**

Draco Malfoy knelt before the small, newly covered plot of earth at the cemetery, tears streaming down his face as he looked away from letters on the tombstone and down to where his hand was taking out the double edged razor from his pocket. Draco began to reflect over the events that had brought him to this point, and contemplate the best way to end his existence.

* * *

It had all started just a year after he married his longtime girlfriend. They were so much in love and he was so happy when she announced that she was with child. He had so looked forward to becoming a father since he had lost his own to cancer in 1991. Draco pampered his wife and baby for the nine months, getting everything prepared for his new son to make his debut.

When his wife went into labor, Draco was there, camera in hand, as he took her to the hospital, and helped her get ready. Draco stood back and watched as the doctors came in and began to hook up her IV's and prep her for the operating room. Minutes later, he walked with her into the delivery room, and began a long period of nervous waiting.

Draco began to get concerned as the doctors crowded around his wife, giving voice to medical speak in worried tones. Draco tapped a doctor on the arm of one of the doctors and asked what was wrong. The doctor shook his head and called a nurse in to lead him out the room. A few moments later, the doctor emerged, shaking his head.

"Mr. Malfoy, your wife is having a very difficult delivery. The baby isn't turning correctly and she's losing a great deal of blood."

"Are they going to be all right?", Draco asked in a hushed, worried tone.

The door to the Operating Room flew open and a nurse came out and told the doctor that he was needed ASAP. The doctor shook his head again and looked at Draco.

"I'll keep you up to date. I don't know just yet."

Three hours later, Draco heard a squeal and rushed in to the room as the doctor held the baby up and began to clean the fluid out of its nose and throat.

"It's a boy, Mrs. Malfoy!", the doctor smiled, then glanced down at her.

Draco's wife smiled at the baby and then looked over at Draco, then breathed her last breath. The delivery had been too much for her. As her head fell back onto the pillow and her heart rate stopped, the doctor handed the baby off to the nurse and began to try to resuscitate the mother.

Draco watched in horror as the doctor tried their best to revive his wife, giving up after several minutes and closing her eyes as he marked the time of her death. Draco walked up to his wife and bent down, his tears falling on her closed eyelids, as he kissed his beloved wife goodbye one last time.

Draco sat in the waiting room of the hospital in shock, unable to move. He didn't budge when Hermione, Ron, Harry and Pansy came in and began to hug and console him. A few minutes later, a nurse came over and placed his son in his arms. Draco finally moved, looking down at his son, his face a mixture of incredible love and immeasurable pain. Draco brought his son close to his chest and kissed his forehead.

"Draco", Hermione said sadly, "Are you OK?"

"I'm holding my son in my arms, I live only for him now.", Draco said sadly.

* * *

Draco looked back up to the name on the gravestone, Jerald Timothy Malfoy, 2001-2007, beloved son of Draco Scott Malfoy. As Draco read the words, he felt a feeling not unlike being punched repeatedly in the gut. He looked back down to his right hand, which shakily held the razor blade and then moved it over his left wrist, maneuvering it just above the blue-hued veins in his wrist…it was almost time to go.

* * *

Jerald was the shining point in Draco's life. His happiness and joy infused Draco with an even greater light than he had before losing his wife. Draco was a wonderful father, loving, caring, and strict; the perfect role model for his little boy. For his part, Jerald seemed to know when Draco would begin to sadly reflect back to his mother's death and would make an extra effort to be with his daddy, doing everything a little kid could do to cheer him up and make him forget his grief.

It was just after Jerald had turned six that the problems began to arise. Draco had to come into Jerald's school and pick him up almost daily. Jerald had begun to have painful headaches and fainting spells. At first, when it was the headaches, Draco brushed it off to the after effects of playground shenanigans. When Jerald fell down and lost consciousness at school two weeks later, a worried Draco immediately took Jerald to the doctor. Draco relayed what had happened to the doctor as he checked Jerald, giving him a physical and taking some blood. The next day, Draco's worries increased tenfold when the doctor called and asked him to bring Jerald into the hospital for some CAT scans.

Draco's anxiety level reached an all time high that afternoon at the hospital when the doctor pulled him aside and sat down with him.

"Draco…we've gotten some preliminary results from the scan and we've found some cancerous tumors in Jerald's brain and lymph nodes. It seems his blackouts are being caused by the pressure that these tumors are putting on certain vital areas of his brain. We would like to start him on chemotherapy as soon as possible."

Draco sat back, his eyes misted over with tears as he recalled his own memories of his own father's battle with and inevitable death from the cancer that had taken him back in the early 90's.

"Doc...do whatever you need to do!"

The doctor frowned and placed his arm on Draco's shoulder, "Son…I have to tell you, his chances are not very good. Even with aggressive chemotherapy, the cancer is so advanced and spreading so quickly that I can't even give him even a 10 chance of survival. I'm so sorry, Draco. I wish there was more we could do."

Draco put his hands over his face, weeping softly into them as the doctor stood up and opened the door, letting in Draco's mother as well as Hermione and the rest of the guys who had come with Draco and Jerald to the hospital. The doctor explained again to them about Jerald's condition, reiterating his slim odds, then left Draco with his family.

"What did I do?" Draco said between sobs, "Why is God doing this to me? First my Dad, then my wife…and now my son."

Hermione put her arms around her cousin Draco, hugging him as they both sat and cried at the impossibility of the situation.

* * *

A few weeks later, the doctors reported that, despite all their efforts, the chemotherapy had not been successful. The mass in Jerald's brain was still growing and had begun to effect the child's motor ability. Draco listened from outside the room as his mother sat on the bed with her grandchild, talking and keeping him amused.

Jerald stopped laughing a minute later and asked in a small voice, "MaMaw…I'm not getting any better, am I?…I'm gonna be leaving Daddy for good soon, aren't I?"

Draco's mother Anne looked down at her grandchild and nodded solemnly, "The doctors say that they have tried everything, but they can't seem to get you better. But don't worry Jerald, you'll be meeting your PaPaw soon. And your PaPaw will take good care of you until you see your Daddy again."

Jerald smiled, "I can't wait to meet my PaPaw, but I am really gonna miss my Daddy. I hope he'll be OK without me. I think my being sick is makin' Daddy sad…I saw him cryin' the other day when he thought I was sleepin', I don't like to see my Daddy cry."

Draco slumped to the floor outside his son's room. His sobs wracked his body as he tried to control the anguish that was ripping his heart to shreds. Draco stood up and went down to the hospital chapel and knelt in the pew and began to pray.

"Oh God, He who makes all things possible, please hear my prayer. I need a miracle…please...please God don't take my son from me! He's all I have."

Draco bowed his head and prayed for a few minutes more then got up and made his way back to his son's room.

Jerald's eyes lit up and he smiled as he saw his Daddy come into the room and sit beside him on the bed.

"Daddy! MaMaw and I was talkin'…she said that I was gonna meet PaPaw and he was gonna take care of me until I see you again. Don't be sad, Daddy, it won't be too long."

Draco forced a smile through his tears and nodded.

"You'll be in good hands Jerald, your PaPaw was the greatest."

Jerald shook his head and put out his bottom lip.

"No Daddy…you're the greatest. I love you Daddy!"

Draco's eyes filled with tears again as he bent over and kissed his son on the forehead, "I love you too, Jer."

Draco watched as his son fell asleep that evening. As he drove home from the hospital, Draco's cell phone rang. Draco answered it and was informed by the doctor that his son had just passed on, going quietly in his sleep. Draco terminated the call and headed back to the hospital. When he arrived, Draco said a final goodbye to his son before the rest of his family got there moments later.

Hermione took Draco home that night and began a week of standing a "suicide watch" for her bereaved cousin.

Draco surprised everyone when he spoke at the funeral, giving his son an emotional, heartfelt eulogy. Draco put his hands over his eyes as they lowered his only son into the ground, for that was something he could not bear to watch.

The next week Draco was kept busy by his cousin and his friends as they stayed with him, monitoring his actions and keeping a close tab on his actions, emotions and moods.

Draco had gotten up before Hermione that morning and eased the car out of the garage and the driveway silently so as not to wake him. Draco drove to the cemetery with no doubts in his mind or his heart to keep him from carrying through with his intentions.

* * *

As Draco brought his hand down to make the first slit in his wrist, he heard the sound of Jerald's laughter, and the low voice of his father. Draco looked up and started backwards, falling to the ground. He blinked his eyes twice and, as he looked up, he saw his father standing beside his son, both standing over him, looking down and shaking their heads sadly. A second later Draco blinked and they were gone. Draco looked around the ground and realized that the razor blade was gone as well.

Draco turned back to the gravestone and heard his father's voice, "It's not your time yet, Draco. I'll take care of Jerald until it is."

Draco nodded and then smiled as he heard his son's voice, "I love you Daddy!"

"I love you too Jerald. I always will." Draco replied as he brushed away the tears from his eyes.

Draco turned and walked out of the cemetery, his grief, his fears and his suicidal thoughts sponged from his mind and from his soul. As he drove away from the cemetery, he smiled as the radio began to play a song, it seemed, just for him.

_  
I got sent home from school one day with a shiner on my eye.  
Fightin' was against the rules and it didn't matter why.  
When dad got home I told that story just like I'd rehearsed.  
And then stood there on those tremblin' knees and waited for the worst. _

_And he said, "Let me tell you a secret about a father's love,  
A secret that my daddy said was just between us."  
He said, "Daddies don't just love their children every now and then.  
It's a love without end, amen, it's a love without end, amen." _

_When I became a father in the spring of '81  
There was no doubt that stubborn boy was just like my father's son.  
And when I thought my patience had been tested to the end,  
I took my daddy's secret and I passed it on to him. _

_And he said, "Let me tell you a secret about a father's love,  
A secret that my daddy said was just between us."  
he said, "Daddies don't just love their children every now and then.  
It's a love without end, amen, it's a love without end, amen." _

_Last night I dreamed I died and stood outside those pearly gates.  
When suddenly I realized there must be some mistake.  
If they know half the things I've done, they'll never let me in.  
And then somewhere from the other side I heard these words again. _

_And he said, "Let me tell you a secret about a father's love,  
A secret that my daddy said was just between us."  
he said, "Daddies don't just love their children every now and then.  
It's a love without end, amen, it's a love without end, amen."_

**The End**

A Love Without End, Amen  
-Aaron Barker


End file.
